On Christmas Eve we will be together at 5:00pm ONLY on Zoom or YouTube, for a service celebrating the many ways we find light in our lives, from distant stars to deep within. Join at 4:45pm for time to chat with familiar faces before we begin at 5:00pm. Have a candle or tapers nearby to light for our favourite tradition of singing Silent Night.
Christmas Eve Service Zoom LinkTime: December 24, 2021 5:00pm Eastern Time (US and Canada)Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/88155648070Meeting ID: 881 5564 8070Phone In via: 647-374-4685 The YouTube livestream of the Service will also be available to subscibers to the UCM channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD8jh9eDfIPsl51oMKSpqPw?view_as=subscriberPlease be aware our livestream is public. Although it is unlikely for you to appear, if you want to ensure you are not visible please keep your video off during the service.
Mark De Wolfe Social Action Award Christmas Eve Collection
The 2021 MDW co-winnners, Charmaine Ferworn and Pamela Smith-Loeters, have decided to forward the UCM Christmas Eve collection to a well-established charity organization: Roots Community Services (formerly United Achievers Community Services). The Brampton-based organization primarily serves Peel Region’s Caribbean and Black communities and they work to improve the quality of life of families and individuals by providing culturally sensitive programs and support which are well and fully described on their website: https://www.rootscs.org/
Please donate directly to Roots Community Services via their website (click on the green Donate Now button on the left hand side of the homepage) or by mailing them a cheque. Do not send your donation to UCM to be forwarded.
The two Co-winners assure us Roots Community Services will be most appreciative of the support for their busy services.
We are here now arriving at Christmas still in the pandemic, still in a surge yet also still here together, a little battered and bruised but also resilient. I have found my Christmas spirit rising as the day draws near – a more simple celebration than years past but delightful in its own way. And I am looking forward to celebrating with all of you!
I know this is not the Christmas we were hoping for this year, with the pandemic’s never ending gifts of exhaustion and sorrow already under the tree, but I also know that love is ever present as well. May our tender hearts find the good gifts in this bright circle of life and light.
Blessings,
Fiona
In view of the rapidly rising COVID case numbers in this Omicron wave of the pandemic, the COVID Task Force has recommended that we suspend in-person services, with a planned return to the Great Hall on February 13th, 2022. Until then our Sunday services will be on Zoom and YouTube. The building remains open for small groups and OWL.
This decision was not made lightly. We want to protect vulnerable members from this highly transmissible variant, give everyone time to get a booster shot, and do our part to protect health care workers and the health care system from another overwhelming surge of hospitalizations. We know many of you are choosing to be cautious in order to see family over the holidays or until you can receive the booster. Thank you for your understanding.
with peace and goodwill,
Fiona